Summary: Did I just wet myself or...?
A/N: Sorry for the delay getting this chapter up. I'd offer you an explanation but you've heard all of it before, lol. Anyway, this next bit in the story is in 3 parts. This is part one. Part two is already written and will be up later this evening. That thing I promised to show you? I will show you in part 3, I decided. A treat at the end of a grueling ordeal.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Brace
FOURTY-ONE WEEKS — Pumpkin
It didn't happen the way she thought it would.
Definitely not the way it happens in movies.
She'd driven herself to the brink of insanity almost every day for the last two weeks watching for signs that it would happen. Every small twinge became amplified tenfold in her anxious mind, every sneeze that overtaxed her compressed bladder, every time she woke in the night with painful pressure and a tight, tight sensation in her middle and lower back that would inevitably, and disappointingly, go away when she shifted positions — it all messed with her in a big way and made her think that it could happen at any moment.
Like they way it was always depicted. A dramatic break, a sudden ferocious pain, and an indisputable knowledge that "I'm in labor!"
It didn't happen like that.
And Rey was exhausted.
She felt stupid when frustrated tears welled up in her eyes at the appointment on her due date, when Holdo checked her cervix and reported no dilating, no thinning. No progress. She cried because her emotions were stretched to their razor thin edge. Because she'd been having uncomfortable Braxon Hicks contractions for days and had hoped that mean they were doing something productive for her body. Because even though she was still afraid to give birth, she was so unbearably uncomfortable, and watching for signs of labor was driving her crazy.
Holdo told her to relax and do something distracting to get her mind off things.
But that advice was basically impossible. She was keyed up with anxiety about birth, and keyed up with anxiety about how she'd know it was time. Even though she'd looked up all the information. Even though the hospital tour had told her. Even though Holdo herself gave clear, calm, concise explanations at every appointment. She still didn't know what it would feel like, and so she couldn't relax.
Ben tried to help. When she started experimenting with all the tricks to induce labor after that disappointing forty week appointment, he gamely participated. Some tricks he liked better than others. He didn't enjoy watching her sweat through the insanely spicy food — he himself couldn't handle it as hot as she did. He worried the whole time she writhed from stomach cramps after, suffering nothing but diarrhea and heartburn for her efforts. He plied her with pineapple and dates and raspberry leaf tea, and found a prenatal massage therapist who said she could work on the right pressure points to kickstart labor. It felt heavenly, and Rey experienced a few hopeful contractions after, but it ultimately went nowhere.
His favorite methods were obvious. He happily provided as much nipple stimulation as she required, and enthusiastically supplied as much of his essence as she could take to try to ripen her cervix with his prostaglandins. He coaxed her into ferociously strong releases and took her to bed as often as she asked for it. While this tactic was incredibly fun and fulfilling, it didn't work. At her 41-week appointment, Rey endured the probing reach of Holdo one more time just to learn that her cervix was still fiercely protective of its precious cargo and unwilling to yield.
"This is normal, sweetie," Holdo told her gently when Rey grit back another wave of frustration.
Normal it may be, but Rey was miserable. She couldn't sleep. Her body hurt all the time. It was hard to concentrate on anything, including her work. She worried about what would happen if she spontaneously went into labor while Ben was at work, and it happened too quickly for him to get home, and she ended up birthing by herself alone on the bathroom floor. She felt tired and nauseated and this new thing had started which she'd begun to think of as "lightning crotch" where pressure from Olive's head pressing down caused sparks of electric pain through her vagina. It always made her jump when it happened.
Ben's thumb rubbed soothingly across her hand, but he said nothing.
Holdo observed them for a moment. When she spoke again, it was soft and careful. "Normally I like to let first time mothers go into labor on their own, but I promise I won't let you get to forty-two weeks. Why don't we do a quick ultrasound to check on baby to make sure she's well, and then, if you're open to it, we can talk about induction."
Rey nodded.
They hadn't seen Olive since the anatomy scan when they learned she was a she, so this cheered her a little. Holdo left the room to get whatever it was that she needed. Ben stood up and leaned his hands on the exam table on either side of where she sat, dark eyes staring into hers.
"Rey," he said softly, "It's going to be okay. She will get here."
"I know." Her throat ached and her eyes filled with unspilled tears, very much against her will. "And I know everything will change when she does. But I just…I can't do it anymore."
His hand found the back of her head, pulling her into him for a kiss before he leaned his forehead against hers. "You've come so far. You've done so well. Better than anyone had any right to ask of you."
She closed her eyes and breathed him in, letting the comfort of his unbridled affection soothe her. It didn't take away any of her sense of urgency to get her body to cooperate, but she basked in it anyway.
He spoke so softly. "She said induction. Is that what you want?"
"I…" She hesitated. Rey had tried to steer clear of birth forums, but the information found its way to her anyway. The naturalists who opposed all medical interventions, including inductions. She knew what they said. That babies would come in their own time. That forcing them out early had consequences. So a part of her quailed in the face of the prospect. Like she had failed…or something. But another part of her was desperate for an escape.
"Yes. I think so," she concluded.
The door opened again, and Ben lifted his head, stepping back. Holdo came shuffling in backwards, pulling along a cart with her. The cart bore what looked like a smaller version of the big ultrasound machine they'd seen in the imaging center at the twenty week scan. She pulled it into the spot she wanted and plugged it in. The machine hummed to life.
Both Rey and Ben watched her silently, anticipation quickly building as she set everything up.
"Alright, hun," she said, flicking on the monitor. "Go ahead and lie back for me, okay?"
Rey did, twinging a little as her sciatic nerve protested the movement. She felt all wrong these days. Like nothing was where it was supposed to be in her body anymore. Nothing had room, except Olive. It wasn't at all a cute or sweet feeling. She wanted her insides back where they belonged, and she wanted this heavy, squirmy, hiccup-y baby in her arms where she could see her face and decide if she looked more like her father or her mother. She wanted to be able to pass the baby off to Ben, too, and roll over onto her empty stomach and stretch out like a cat and fall into a deep, deep sleep.
Holdo squirted the gel over the lower part of Rey's dome, arcing from ribcage to pelvis. She skated the wand threw the gel a bit and then quickly and efficiently located the head. A tiny profile came into view.
"She's in a good position," Holdo said approvingly. With a deft swivel, she located Olive's heart and clicked on the sound as she monitored the BPM. "Steady heartbeat. Doesn't look like she's in any stress." Sliding the ultrasound around a bit more, she honed in on a pretty banal blank space and clicked through a measurement. "Looks like you've still got plenty of amniotic fluid. Rey, your daughter is perfectly perfect and very comfortable."
"That makes one of us," Rey sighed.
Ben swallowed as Holdo clicked off the machine and wiped Rey down Maybe she saw something in his face, because she paused with a knowing smile and said softly, "Soon enough, Ben. You'll get to see her again soon enough. In ultra-high-definition."
His lips twitched into a sheepish grin. "I think I'm ready for that."
"I know you are," said Holdo. She returned her attention to Rey. "Which leads me to my question. I don't think I want you to go another full week. So — are you comfortable with the idea of induction?"
"I just don't know what to expect with that. I don't know what it entails. Especially if I'm not progressing. How do you just force labor to happen?"
"We've got some medication that can ripen your cervix," she explained patiently. "And we can do synthetic oxytocin to get contractions going until your body picks up the rhythm of labor on its own. Don't worry, we're pretty good at getting babies out. We just schedule a day, you call the hospital to find out what time you should come in, and that's it."
It wasn't really what she imagined. But then…it sounded oddly comforting too. Something inside Rey flickered hope. She could have an end in sight. A terminus. She could wake up one morning and know that it would finally happen.
"Yes," she said immediately, "I want to do that."
But her body had a mind of its own. Because after they set the date — five days from then — and even though she stopped trying to symptom watch every damn thing her body was doing — something happened.
It was in the morning of October 19th. Ben was already at work. Rey had slept in, barely giving him a bleary morning kiss goodbye before passing out again after another gruelingly sleepless night. She'd had to wake up four times to pee, and strong Braxton Hicks contractions yanked her out of an uneasy doze twice. She was tired. And she knew she needed to eat, but she felt nauseated too, so she let herself sleep in for a long time.
When her phone buzzed with a meme from Finn, startling her awake, it was already eleven. She rubbed her eyes blearily and slithered out of bed, waddling to the bathroom. She felt generally bad, but with no real way to define exactly why. A shower would probably help. After finishing her pit stop, she turned on the water and waited for it to get warm, peeling off the pajamas she'd worn to stave off the chilly October nights.
As she leaned forward to put her hand under the stream and test the temperature, there was little knocking sensation very low in her pelvis and a sudden warm trickle of fluid ran down her thigh.
She squeaked, stood back up sharply, and swiped a finger against the little trail tracing now down her calf. It wasn't urine. She knew it wasn't. It didn't smell like anything, and she'd just emptied, and the feeling that accompanied it...
Was that her water breaking?
Her heart skipped a beat, and then another, and suddenly with trembling fingers she grabbed her phone and texted Ben.
Because it definitely wasn't urine. And there was too much of it to be mere discharge.
—Um...something happened.
He didn't immediately answer, so she set down her phone and got in the shower, thoroughly cleaning herself as best she could. If what happened was real, she was going to have the most intense day of her life. She wanted to at least start out smelling nice. On second thought, maybe she'd better do her hair too. Sure, she'd probably sweat and get greasy, but the nervous energy now coursing through her veins demanded a thorough clean. And while she was at it, maybe she should shave her pits. Too bad she couldn't actually see her southern region, because she'd really like to get rid of that hair too. Maybe there was a hand mirror she could use to accomplish the tast.
It didn't feel like she took a long time — her heart raced excitedly through the whole shower, pumping her full of adrenaline and speeding up time — but when she got out and toweled off, she discovered she had six missed calls from Ben and a litany of increasingly panicked text messages.
Ben: What happened?
Ben: Are you okay?
Ben: Rey?
Ben: Sweetheart are you alright?
Ben: Hello?
Ben: Rey wtf
Ben: YOU CAN'T STOP RESPONDING AFTER A TEXT LIKE THAT
Ben: REY
Ben: Where are you?
Ben: ANSWER MY CALLS REY
Ben: I'm sending Hux to check on you.
Ben: He's closer.
Ben: Please answer me
Ben: Forget it. I'm leaving
Ben: Dammit.
Ben: Hold on, baby, I'm coming.
Ben: I'm in the car
Ben: Do I need to call an ambulance?
Ben: Please answer
She called him back immediately, feeling sheepish and a little too close to hilarity at the same time. She put the phone on speaker as she quickly slid on some maternity underwear, loose sweats and an oversized tee-shirt.
"Are you alright?" he demanded without any greeting whatsoever.
"Ben, I'm fine—"
"Goddammit, Rey." He sounded positively wrecked. His voice shook. "Please, please never do that to me again. Not right now. Not when we're already on pins and needles."
"I'm sorry," she laughed. "I'm sorry. Really, I'm fine. I sent you that text and got in the shower and I didn't even think what it would do to you when I didn't answer."
"Sent me into orbit."
"Yeah, I can tell."
"Has Hux gotten to you yet?"
"Not yet."
"His office is five minutes away. Absolutely useless. He should have been there already."
Rey toweled out her hair and finger-combed through it. Reminding herself that she was probably going to be a whole mess by the time she came out the other side of this, so she shouldn't try too hard right now. Still, she kept fussing with her appearance anyway. "You didn't need to call him."
"Yes I did. He'll wait with you until I get there."
"You're really on your way?"
"Yes. What's going on? Do I turn around and go back to work, or do I come home to check on you?"
"Come home," she said with certainty. "I think I'm…leaking."
"Leaking." His voice was instantly sharp again. "Like you think your water broke?"
"Not broke like that, but definitely a major leak."
"I'll be there in fifteen minutes. An accident's got everyone narrowed down to one lane. Do you have your go-bag?"
"I'll get it."
"Have you called Holdo's office?"
"No, I just finished getting dressed."
"Okay. Does it hurt? Are you alright?"
"I'm fine. Honestly. I'll call the office to see if this is something I should go in for, but right now I feel fine."
"That's a pretty big relief," he sighed. "Okay. I'll be there soon. I love you."
"I love you too. See you in a minute."
She hung up just as an overly loud and insisted knock rang through the condo. Hurrying downstairs before Hux got nervous and tried to bust his way in, Rey yanked the door open, revealing a startled pale ginger with his fist still in the air
"Oh," he said. "I — thought you were in trouble. Are you alright?"
"I'm okay," she assured him, moving over. "Ben wants you to stay until he gets here though. I think it's unnecessary, but whatever. If you want the break from work, you can have it."
"Alright…" he said suspiciously. He scooted past her and looked around the condo, as if expecting to find evidence of some terrible event. "Are you sure?"
Rey closed the door and looked up Holdo's office number on her contact list. She tapped it, lifted the phone to her ear, and gave him a flippant wave. "I'm sure. Honestly, it's nothing."
She motioned at the couch so he'd sit down. A cheerful secretary answered. Rey explained that she needed to speak with Doctor Holdo about a possible amniotic leak, the secretary sounded dutifully surprised and promised to have the doctor call her back as soon as she was finished with her current patient. Rey hung up, trying not to be too disappointed — or alarmed. It was fine. Everything was fine. She still felt mostly calm…right?
"I'm pretty sure I need to insist that you sit down and take it easy," Hux said uncertainly, and she saw that he still hadn't sat down. He perched on the balls of his feet, as if waiting to catch her when she inevitably collapsed from the trauma of maybe-possibly-sorta going into labor.
She brushed past him, way too agitated to sit down. "Can't."
He followed her. "What's going on? Why did Solo sound like he'd take my head off if I didn't come check on you? What the devil is an amniotic leak?"
"Google it," she said, holding her cumbersome middle as she waddled up the stairs. "Actually, you know what, read me what you find because I think I need to know what the internet recommends here."
Hux followed her right into the bedroom. He leaned against a wall, searching through his phone as she rifled around looking for the hospital bag she'd packed two weeks ago. Under any other circumstances, she would have swiftly ejected him from this space that belonged to her and Ben and all their most intimate moments— but she didn't bother right now. Her mind was far too occupied with other things, and if Ben had instructed Hux to keep an eye on her, she'd just have to reassert her self-reliance another time. He could win this skirmish of wills this time. She was preparing for a much bigger and more important battle.
The information Hux provided alarmed the hell out of him, but reassured Rey a bit. Real incidences of water breaking were rare, leaks were more common, and there were ways to discern an amniotic leak from a bladder leak, and yes, going to Labor and Delivery was recommended to determine what steps to take next. In the meanwhile she'd found her bag and shoved it into Hux's chest so he'd carry it downstairs for her. He followed her to the couch where she sat to wait for Ben.
He fidgeted, shifting from foot to foot. "Are you sure you're okay? This sounds serious. Are you going into labor?"
"I…don't feel like I am?" she admitted with a hint of uncertainty. There were no contractions, no further leaks. She only felt the rhythmic blips of Olive's tiny hiccups.
"But does this mean you're having the baby today?"
"I mean, you read it yourself. Maybe, maybe not. We'll see what they say at the hospital."
He stared at her for a minute, as if trying to decide if he bought her reassurances or not. Finally, however, he sat in an armchair and sucked in a deep, steadying breath. "Okay. So we'll wait for Ben, and then you two will go get the verdict."
"Right." Rey checked her phone as if that would magically summon a return call from Holdo. "And you will no doubt tell Rose and she'll text me freaking out."
"I already told her," he confirmed.
She laughed. "When?"
"After I read you the stuff about the leak. Sounds scary."
"I thought you wanted kids with her. Why would you tell her about the scary stuff?"
"I need the moral support."
"You need the support?" she laughed again. "To be here with me? I'm not going to shoot the baby out into your lab."
"You'd better not!"
"What's going on with you two, anyway? You do want kids with her, don't you?"
He turned his face away, giving a sniff and shrugging. "Of course I do. But I'd like to her to marry me first. Some of us still like to do things in order." He snuck a glance at her. "Are you offended?"
She grinned. "No."
"Maybe you should call the hospital and find out what they want you to do," Hux offered, bringing them back to the crisis at hand.
It was a good idea, so Rey did. The nurse on the phone was super nice, and confirmed that yes, she should definitely come down to get it tested. Rey told her she'd be there within the hour, and they said they'd have a bed waiting.
Rey reported the news to Hux, who looked satisfied.
Ben arrived like a hurricane, bursting through the door as if he didn't care if he tore it down. Hux jumped clean out of his skin at the arrival. Rey turned around to see him prowling in. The moment he saw her, he ran to her, vaulting over the couch to sink to his knees in front of her and yank her into a fierce hug. His body was violently trembling.
"I'm so glad you're okay," he breathed unsteadily.
She soothed a hand through his hair. "I'm sorry I scared you."
He inhaled a long, slow breath and then let her go, rocking back to sit on the floor in front of her. "Did you get a hold of the office?"
"No. They said they'd call me back."
He frowned. "So how are we supposed to know if we should go in or not?"
"You should," chimed in Hux.
Ben jerked around, scrambling to his feet. "I forgot you were here."
"You called me."
"I did." He paused, his voice softening. "Thanks for coming."
Hux gave him a nod.
Ben turned back around and addressed Rey. "So he's right? We should go?"
"Yeah, the hospital said we should."
He needed no other word than that to spur him to action, taking her hands and hauling her to her feet. Rey winced as another little squirt of something left her, and she wondered if she should have worn a pad to save her underwear. It wasn't leaning that quickly, so she thought she might be okay.
"Maybe let's get a towel for the car," she said, "just in case."
Hux grimaced.
Ben dashed away from her, frantically scrambling around the condo in search of his own bag and the towel. When he finally came back, he looked genuinely flustered. Rey smiled. She felt surprisingly calm now. Excited, but calm. She wanted to transfer some of that peacefulness to him, so she put a hand on his chest and said gently:
"Ben. It's okay. There's no rush. It's not happening right this second. We've got time."
He took her hand and lifted to his lips, giving her a quick kiss and nodding. But he didn't say anything, and that nervous energy still vibrated through him. He took her bag and led her out of the condo without another word said. Hux followed them.
"So Rose," he said conspicuously. "Obviously she knows what's going on. Does Gwen? Should I tell the others?"
"Gwen knows something happened," Ben said. "She saw me fly out of there. Just reassure her it's fine."
"Will do." Hux gave them a little solute. "Good luck, friends. See you on the other side."
Rey smiled. "Thanks for being a good friend."
"Keep us updated if you can." He turned and headed to his car, and Ben wasted no time hauling Rey over to his own, still idling in the drive.
She laid the towel on the seat before she sat.
Ben drove quickly. Rey explained what she'd learned about amniotic leaks, and what they might expect at L&D. Ben listened intently.
"Okay," he said when she finished. "So I should wait to break the news to my parents, because we don't know if it's actually happening today."
"Right. Let's wait and see what happens." Rey didn't add the caveat she kept back, that what Hux had read her about leaks indicated she would need to go into labor soon or risk infection. So the odds of her delivering today were high. They were very high.
"Okay," said Ben softly.
She glanced over, observing his white knuckles clenched against the steering wheel, the pallor of his face, the way his mouth worried the inside of his lip — Ben was freaking the hell out.
"Hey," she said encouragingly, putting a hand on his arm, "it's gonna be okay."
His brows knit together almost imperceptibly. "I'm out of my depth here."
"I know. It'll be alright, I promise."
"Don't promise that. In movies whenever someone says something like that, it's a guarantee that the next plot device will prove them disastrously wrong. And I can't stop thinking about all the ways it could go wrong. This is everything I felt in that Thai restaurant ten months ago, times a hundred."
"Fine, I won't promise," she said, her mouth twitching into the tiniest of grins. She was surprised to find such calm radiating through her center, despite the excited tremble in the pit of her stomach. She'd been terrified of this for so long, now that it was here she didn't feel as afraid as she expected.
She felt ready.
"You need a distraction," she decided, pairing her phone to the Bluetooth.
"It's so messed up that you're the one trying to comfort me," he sighed. "It ought to be the other way around. What you're about to go through..."
"Hey, I don't want to talk about that. So no more talking. Just singing." She cranked up the volume as the first notes of Queen's anthemic Don't Stop Me Now trickled through the stereo.
It took a few bars for Ben to give in to the siren call of Freddie Mercury, but by the chorus she managed to get him singing with her, pouring all their nervous energy into dancing and belting their way through the speed of light.
It was so like them, that just for a minute, Rey forgot all about where they were going or what was happening. She was transported back to the first time she and Ben had hung out without the group around. She'd felt awkward about it, even though Ben was so easy to get along with, because she didn't know what to do with herself. They'd been sent to pick up Poe and Jess from the airport after visiting Jess's family, and the initial few minutes in the car were stilted and strained, so Ben had put on an honest to god mix tape he had in the car, cassette and all, and suddenly they discovered that they were bonding over an enthusiasm for Queen.
It felt like a lifetime ago, but that was really the start of the best friendship she'd ever had.
"What is it?" Ben asked, interrupting his singing.
And Rey realized she'd started laughing. "Ben we're married."
"I know," he said, and his face finally cracked into a grin.
"Oh my god," she laughed again.
It struck her anew, the absurdity of that statement. The improbability of it. The wonder, most of all. That she should be married and on her way to the hospital to have a baby — Ben's baby — when ten months ago she'd been trying to date other people and figure out her life — it struck her as wildly laughable.
The euphoria carried her through the rest of the way to the hospital, and still buzzed light and dizzy through her brain. Like her blood was made of lightning now. Her earlier calm was quickly burning up in the electricity, replaced by nervous anticipation. Ben held her hand tightly as they walked in, and she squeezed back just as hard, the two of them clinging to one another in a silent prayer that gravity could keep them on the ground. They were walking into a vast, red unknown, maybe to face their most harrowing challenge yet. Were they ready for this? Was their relationship strong enough to tackle everything ahead, not only now and here but beyond it, too?
Did it matter?
It would happen regardless.
Rey chewed her lip nervously as Ben got her checked in, her palm skimming lightly over the enormous swell that — though cumbersome and intensely uncomfortable — had become a familiar part of her over these last few months. With it came a flicker of fear again. Right now Olive was safe and cozy in a world designed to provide for all her needs. But the moment she emerged, her needs would amplify a hundredfold, and it would be up to her terrified parents to meet those needs. She would be sad sometimes, and scared sometimes, and hurt sometimes, and there was nothing Rey could do to prevent it because that was just how the world worked.
The nerves in her curled tighter and tighter, like springs coiling in their mounting tension.
The desk attendant gave Ben a visitor badge and gave Rey a wristband with her name a date of birth printed on it, after which Ben tugged her over to some chairs where they sat until someone came to get them. His leg bounced and his fingers maintained a vice-like grip between hers. He swallowed, chewed the inside of his lip, looked around at the mediocre art.
Rey had seen him this nervous exactly one time. It was when Poe had convinced a handful of them to go do the haunted ski lift their local resort had going during October one year. Ben wasn't easily rattled, but it turned out he wasn't a fan of really intense heights like that. Rey had originally thought to ride with Rose, but when her friend kicked her out saying she wanted to snuggle with Hux, Rey wound up in Ben's car. She saw his white knuckles, his wan expression, the way he grit his teeth so hard she thought they'd shatter whenever the lift would pause and they were left suspended and swinging above the vast abyss of the slope below them. When they dipped in to each stop and the ghoulish actors would spout their scary lines, Ben would finally take a moment to breathe.
She felt bad for him.
And so began one of their stranger encounters, part making bad pun jokes to get him to laugh, part fooling around under the blanket to get his mind off the height. It worked exceptionally well. He no longer paid attention to the earth plunging meters below them, or the bump and sway of the chair on the wire. Afterward, he'd thanked her for helping him get through it and took her blanket with the promise to wash it and return it. When he did, it smelled like his detergent. She'd slept with it for a few weeks after until it started to smell like her again.
"Feeling like you're back on that haunted ski lift, there, Ben?"
He glanced at her fleetingly, throat bobbing before he rallied a half-grin. "Not too far off, actually. You?"
"Yeah, definitely dangling over a chasm," she chuckled, half-hearted and breathless. "Don't think we should use the same tactic to distract ourselves this time, though."
He squeezed her hand. "We'll be okay."
It was good to hear him echo back her own earlier reassurance. They would. Everything would be fine.
Right?
Wrong.
At first, everything was not fine. In the first place, their nurse, who was named Addisyn, made this squinty little smile when she got them settled in a delivery room and asked about what brought them in. The smile followed Rey's explanation of the pre-shower trickle.
"Are you sure you it wasn't urine?" she asked a little condescendingly. "At this stage, it's really common for your bladder to leak."
"Um, I'm pretty sure." Rey shifted uncomfortably, glancing between the nurse and Ben. She sat on the edge of a standard hospital bed. Ben sat on the couch near the window, a few feet away. "It was colorless and odorless."
Addisyn made that squinty smile again. "If you're well-hydrated, your urine can be like that too."
"I'd just gone to the bathroom."
"It can be difficult to know if you've voided everything. Has it happened again since?"
"Um…not really. A little tiny bit, but not as much as the first time."
"Yeah, it's probably just urine."
Rey frowned. "I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. Should we not have come? We called and they said to come have it checked."
"She's forty-one weeks," Ben added, his voice hard. "You need to check."
Addisyn flapped a hand dismissively. "Oh, no, of course we'll do that. I just don't want you to be disappointed because I'm betting it wasn't what you thought."
This was a rough start, Rey thought with a frown. She didn't like it that the nurse clearly didn't believe her. And maybe Addisyn's experience here made her wiser than Rey, who was admittedly a nervous first-timer, but she'd have appreciated a more understanding approach than this.
Addisyn got Rey's information and took her ID and insurance cards — both shiny and brand new after all the name change headache. She gave Rey a gown and told her to undress and put it on, opening at the back, and then disappeared for a while.
After her initial irritation faded, Rey's nervous energy returned full force again. Especially when she peeled off her clothes and put on the flimsiest of flimsy fabrics. Ben helped her tie the woefully inadequate ties to keep it semi-closed on the back.
"You're shaking," he observed softly.
"I'm scared," she admitted.
"Scared that rude nurse is right, or scared you are?"
"…I'm not sure."
He pulled her in against his body, and even though he'd been the one freaking out in the car, his body was strong and solid and warm. He didn't shake. He held her close and introduced a steady drip of calm into her bloodstream. Rey let herself lean into him and listen to his heartbeat. The familiar thrum of a muscle she knew so well.
A brief knock interrupted the moment before Addisyn was coming in again, pulling a cart behind of items behind her. A sterile tray bore a speculum, something packaged in a long rectangle of paper, and some little tubes. Ben stepped back and returned to his couch to give her space.
Rey sat on the end of the bed again.
"Okay, so we're going to do a pelvic exam," explained Addisyn. "I'll swab around and test to see if there's any amniotic fluid. Sit back on the bed for me."
Awkwardly, Rey scooted backwards and drew her feet up onto the bed. With instruction from the nurse she lay back and let her knees fall to the side, bearing the uncomfortable intrusion of the speculum. Holdo had a very nice touch when it came to pelvic exams. One of the reasons Rey had been going to her for years was precisely because her annual physicals were not awful. However she did it, Holdo managed to conduct an entire exam, Pap smear and all, without causing any discomfort.
Addisyn did not have that gift. She ratcheted open the dreadful instrument in painful, jarring clicks. Rey winced and tried not to instinctually shift away. Opening the paper packet, Addisyn withdrew the swabs — essentially very long q-tips — and swiped around Rey's inner walls, taking samples of whatever she found there. Rey counted the seconds until it was over.
Finally the speculum slid out, and the swabs were stored in the little tubes.
"We'll just quickly check your dilation, if that's okay," Addisyn said briskly.
Rey nodded grimly. She didn't really want anything else up inside her after the speculum, but if she really was going to push a baby out of her body today, she supposed a couple of fingers now were the least abuse her vag was going to get.
Addisyn frowned as she strained to reach. "Has anyone told you that your cervix sits really far back there?"
"No," Rey said.
"It's really high," she said, and the way she said it — like it was some flaw Rey had any ability to correct.
Holdo didn't seem to have trouble getting back there, but maybe she had extra long fingers. With a slight glance in Ben's direction, Rey mused privately that having an extra long tunnel was a benefit when her favorite partner was as big and long as he was.
Finally Addisyn reported the bad news. "You're not really dilated. Maybe like a one, if that. Still pretty thick too. It doesn't feel like you're in labor. Have you had any contractions since you felt the leak?"
"Not really, no."
"Okay. Well that doesn't sound promising. But we'll test it and see what happens."
She told them to hang tight and wheeled her cart back out of the room, leaving them alone again.
Rey struggled to sit up, reaching out blindly for help. Ben was on his feet in an instant, pulling her upright. She folded her legs criss-cross under her and dropped her hands down over her belly, frowning a little.
"Are you disappointed?" he asked softly.
"I don't understand why I'm not dilating," she admitted. She was trying so hard not to be disappointed, but yeah, she definitely was.
"Your body has never done this before," he suggested. "Maybe it's not sure how."
"It's supposed to know how. Isn't that the whole point of being a mammal? Giving birth to live young is like…super essential biology."
"That's a really dehumanizing way to put it, I guess." He chuckled.
That undermined her frustration and made her crack a small smile. She glanced around the room, wondering if they'd kick her out and send her home, or let her stay and bring her daughter into the world here. It was…nice-ish. It threaded some strange junction point of homey and medical, like someone had taken a harsh sterile environment and dressed it in little touches of domesticity. Warm wallpaper, mahogany cupboards and cabinets, the plush couch and a reclining armchair. These elements couldn't disguise what it was though, from the motorized hospital bed to the IV stands to the monitors and plugs and trappings of medicine.
Still, Rey appreciated whatever effort had gone in to make this place a little more soothing than a typical hospital room.
Ben sat next to her on the bed. He'd pulled out his phone and looked up his mother's contact information.
"Are you telling her?" Rey asked, eyes widening.
He nodded as he put the phone to his ear.
"We don't even know if there's anything to tell her!"
"I want to get — Hi, Mom."
Rey couldn't hear all the words, but she heard Leia's voice come muffling through the phone anyway.
"We're good. Actually we're at the hospital right now checking to see if baby comes today."
An alarmed shout rang through Ben's end of the call and Rey laughed. He quickly explained everything going on and how they were just waiting for the results now. Leia seemed to calm down a bit after that.
"Listen, Mom, I assume you have Amilyn's cell? Yeah. Can you send it to me?"
Rey glanced at him. He didn't look at her.
"Because she's Rey's doctor, Mom."
A beat of silence, and then Ben pulled the phone away from his ear while even louder noises came stringing out of the speaker — outraged, offended noises. He gave Rey an amused look.
"I have a feeling we're going to need it," he told her by way of explanation. When his mother had finished her shouting, he put the phone back to his ear. "Right, I know, but you know it isn't really your business who our doctor is. You do know that, right? Yeah. The whole time, yeah. No, before Paige's wedding. Rey's been seeing her for years. Well she couldn't really tell you, could she? She's a good doctor, she doesn't violate HIPAA. Look, I don't really have time to get into this with you, can you just send me her number? Yes, I know they'll contact her from here, but I want it anyway. Oh now you're worried about crossing professional boundaries?"
Rey giggled a little again, more emotion bubbling up in that laughter than the conversation exactly warranted, but then, she was feeling tremendously out of sorts.
Eventually Ben managed to get off the phone, and a moment later his phone pinged with the incoming message containing Holdo's personal cell number.
"You don't think it's a little invasive, contacting her that way?" Rey asked.
He shrugged. "I don't plan on using it unless we run into trouble."
There was an unexpected measure of comfort in this, Rey realized. She leaned her head on his shoulder, grateful that he was prepared to go to any lengths for her.
They waited a long time. So long, Rey began to wonder if they'd been forgotten about. Ben had gotten bored and went snooping around the room. He discovered a couple of big exercise balls in the closet, and an oddly-shaped exercise ball — much smaller in size, and squished in the middle, with two bulbous ends.
"What do you think this is?" he wondered with a grin.
Rey couldn't even begin to guess. She shook her head. "I have no idea."
There came a knock on the door at last, and Ben hurriedly put the ball back and stepped back over to his spot near the couch as Addisyn came in.
"The test was negative for amniotic fluid," she reported, and her smile was so pitying, Rey could have strangled her. "Looks like you get to go home and be a bit more patient this time."
Patience was something Rey ran out of a week ago. Tears surged unbidden to her eyes and she dropped her face into her hands, trying and failing to stifle them. She wasn't wrong. She wasn't. She'd known what she felt. Every instinct told her it was real. She was afraid for Olive — afraid that she'd keep leaking and Olive would run out of her cozy protective bath and be in danger of serious infection. It was only four days until her scheduled induction, but that was four days too long. Rey wanted to have it done with today.
Ben was suddenly next to her. She kept her hands pressed to her eyes, trying to stop the soft, muffled sobs wracking through her body. He didn't touch her, but she felt his heat beside her anyway.
"I think you need to run another test," he said in a low voice. "There has to be another way to check."
"Sir, this is the best method." Addisyn no longer sounded cheerful. She sounded offended. "I know you wanted a different answer, but as I said, it's not uncommon—"
"She says it wasn't urine. You need to listen to her."
"You need to calm down. I ran the test. It's not my fault if she's inventing signs of labor."
Rey jerked her head up, a shock of rage flashing through her. "I'm what?"
"It's in your head," Addisyn said. "The supposed leak. You're being hysterical and you probably felt what you wanted to feel."
"Get out," Ben snapped, his voice as cold as an arctic wind.
She blinked at him. "Excuse me?"
"I said get out. You're dismissed."
Addisyn put her hands on her hips. "You don't get to dismiss me."
"You don't get to talk to my wife like that," he snarled. "Get out of this room."
"I'm going to get hospital security to get the two of you out of here." Addisyn turned and fled the room in a whirl of outrage. Ben started after her. In a wild flare of fear that he was going to hurt the woman, Rey reached out and caught his hand.
"Where are you going?"
"To the nurse's station," he said darkly. "I'm going to talk to the head nurse."
She let him go, and in a moment, he was gone. Rey wiped her eyes and cheeks and shook her head, berating herself for getting so emotional. It didn't matter that she was wrong. Addisyn was probably right. She'd probably just invented everything that happened this morning because she so badly wanted to be done being pregnant.
Olive stirred within her, and suddenly Rey was angry again. No! She'd known what she felt. She knew it. And now her daughter was in danger because the person who was supposed to help her wouldn't believe her.
Maybe she should have gone with a doula after all. She needed an advocate in her ring.
But — she had one already.
A moment later, Ben returned with another nurse.
"Hello Rey," she said gently. "I'm Kandia. Your husband here has told me what's going on. I've spoken to your doctor," she glanced briefly at Ben and Rey realized that he'd done it, he'd called Holdo, "and she asked us to do an ultrasound to check your fluid levels and call her back. Are you alright with that?"
Rey nodded.
"Great," Kandia smiled. "Just give me one minute to get imaging up here, okay?"
"Okay," Rey said in a small voice.
She left again and Rey looked at Ben for an explanation.
His face was still etched in residual anger. "Addisyn won't be coming back. She's barred from entering our room again. I told the head nurse what happened and I called Holdo. She said she won't let them discharge you without making absolutely certain. She spoke to them and told them what to do. We got assigned this new one."
Her eyes filled again, and he jerked towards her in alarm, easing himself next to her on the bed and taking her face in his hands so he could brush away the tears.
"Hey," he soothed. "It's okay. It's going to be okay. You're not hysterical. I believe you."
"I know," she said, her breath hitching. She closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against his. "I'm just really grateful you're here."
He held her chin and tilted her into him, catching her quivering lips in a firm kiss. "I've got you," he promised softly.
Next chapter coming up in a jiff! It's all done, just polishing it up and making a quick moodboard and then I'll post it! Give me a couple hours.